Better Team

(c) B. W. Beacham

The team headed toward the island not sure what they would find when they arrived.

Let me put it this way: If they’d been told, they wouldn’t have believed it, anyway. So it was just as well that we left them in the dark. But I’ll admit that it made for a nasty surprise.

Give them credit, they handled the mutants well once they got over the initial shock. Shame they couldn’t wipe all of them out, isn’t it? They put quite a dent in the population, though – a good start.

And credit to you. You put together an almost perfect team. Do it again –  same level of smarts and tenacity but with better aim.

***

Mondays Finish the Story has been one of my favourite flash fiction challenges, and I was sad to hear that Barbara, the host, had lost her fight against cancer last weekend. I’ve decided to go back and use all the prompts I missed – that will make me think of her once a week. This is the first one.

No Returns

image by Coralie Bickford-Smith 

Look at the star.

Focus on its movement.

I can tell if you take your eye off the star. I see its reflection in your iris, or, if you look elsewhere, I won’t see it. That’s how I’ll know.

Focus on the star. It’s all that matters. Trace its course across the sky. Wouldn’t it be marvellous to join it, watch it from a spacecraft? Yes, it would, wouldn’t it? Imagine yourself weightless, floating through zero G, waving at the moon.

You can. You know you want to. Sign here for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Mars.

Look at the star.

Special Occasion

photo by blickpixel 

She’s run off again. She thinks he doesn’t know it’s not a work trip. She thinks he’s an idiot because she doesn’t make any effort of hiding it.

He sits at the table, the kitchen illuminated only by the streetlights outside. He refills his glass. He’s kept the bottle for a special occasion, yes, but he had another kind of special in mind.

He wishes he were the idiot she sees. Then they would have a future. He’s tried to be that idiot, looking away whenever she met with the other fella.

Not anymore.

He drinks to his unwanted freedom.

Anthropomorphism – A Cautionary Tale

photo by Faber Academy 

She wishes he’d shut up already. It’s all gobbledygook to her and even if she understood half of it, she doubts she would care.

The food on her plate is left untouched. She’s done her best, which is a far cry from the real thing. She pleaded until the last moment for him to change his mind, to book a table in a restaurant.

‘This is not how things are done,’ he might have replied. ‘You know what you have to do.’

That’s why she got him, after all.

But she couldn’t do it. She could not kill the turkey.

Perfect Day For It

A grey day has left the little playground deserted.

A film of fog covers the slide, but she’s wearing a thick coat. It’ll get soaked, her bum won’t.

In other words, the perfect day. No mothers to give her alarmed looks, no children to laugh at her.

Before her senses return, she slips though the gate and climbs the ladder. From the ground, it doesn’t look so high; up here, she’s glad it isn’t any higher. She sits. She glides down. She goes back for another round.

The day continues to be grey and dreary, but she doesn’t stop smiling.

Three Phone Calls: Two Friends, One Grandparent

photo by Pavan Trikutam 

The first call interrupts my watching Terminator with my siblings. My brother answers and hands me the phone. I leave the room. When I return, they can’t tell I’ve had the worst news. I’m already in denial.

The second call comes on a late January afternoon. It’s my best friend and I can tell something’s wrong by the way he says hello. This time, I can’t keep it to myself. My mother, brother and sister gather round and hold me.

The third call comes early on a weekday morning. It’s my mother; my grandfather has died. This time, I’m prepared.

Alien Abduction

(c) Etol Bagam

They looked friendly enough. So after I got over the shock of running into a bunch of aliens in the wood, I went to say hello.

I couldn’t understand their upbeat, chirpy language. It sounded so welcoming, though. When the purple one made gestures that looked like an invitation to follow them, I did.

Guess who’s feeling like an idiot now?

It’s a trap. I wish I’d taken a picture of the aliens they used to lure me here. I might get enough of a signal to warn other people.

Voices outside that sound human, but not friendly at all.

***

Still fighting the cold, so my FFfAW entry this week is a bit meh. Click here for more exciting ones.

This Body

photo by TanteTati 

You wake up in someone else’s body. This body is thin and hungry. You think of tea and porridge and this body’s mouth waters and its stomach growls.

This body lives in a shoebox of a room. There’s a partly cracked mirror in the corner. You stand so you can see this body, but for now, you look at the feet. They are small and slender. This body is younger than yours.

Thinner, younger – you don’t know how you got this body, but you may never want to give it back.

The questions is, how did you get this body?

Good, Better, Best

(c) Sonya, 2015

Only half four and the sun is setting. Give it another hour and it’ll be pitch black.

The sky grows rosy just above the horizon, looking good, the bellies of blue-grey clouds as if they’re on fire. You’re witnessing a temporary work of art evolve and you slow down to watch the reds intensify before the dark extinguishes them. Better take a picture – it’ll make for a great new Facebook header.

Maybe this is the way to approach winter, as your chance to snap stunning sunset pictures. Everybody loves them.

Best hope for a season’s worth of sunny late afternoons.

Change of Scenery

(c) Sonya, 2014

‘Remember how we used to talk about living in a house by the beach?’

‘Do you have to remind me? The ‘things I didn’t do’ list’s much too long already.’

‘Well, take this one off because we’re going to. Until, you know…’

‘Say it. Until I begin the treatment.’

‘I’m not sure you can call it treatment.’

‘It’s all we can afford, and we’ll call it treatment. But we can’t afford a month at the seaside.’

‘We can. Don’t ask how. I want us to have a good time before you…’

‘You have to start saying it sooner or later.’

***

Nothing I wrote today was quite up to scratch, but this one is the best of the lot I reckon (it started life as a response to the Daily Prompt: a tale of two cities and went strange). I have a terrible cold, not the best condition for writing master pieces…